InSecurity
by Saucie
Summary: Seventeen, senior year, and the struggle to remain punk in the dividing line between childhood and the world outside. FreddyKatie.
1. Lounge Act

**(In)Security.**

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**Disclaimer:** All characters come from the worship-worthy movie School of Rock, and all songs are copyrighted by their respective songwriters. I'd mention them all, except I have no clue as to which songs I'll be using throughout the course of this fic. So basically, no songs are the product of my rapidly waning imagination.

**A/N:** Rated a HARD PG-13, for – to put it mildly – smooching, and gratuitous usage of the f-word by Freddy. (C'mon, you can't expect a seventeen-year-old Freddy Jones to limit himself to 'shut up').

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**Lounge Act.**_

He wasn't quite sure how it happened. Maybe it was the day back in tenth grade when she'd walked into his room and turned up her nose and he'd thought she was a snob. Maybe it was the last time Billy had used the two of them as mannequins and her top had been too low-cut and he'd thought, "Shit." Maybe it was the day he'd sent one of his cymbals flying and it had hit her in the forehead and it had left a cut and he hadn't been sure whether to apologise or laugh his ass off.

Maybe it was the day he'd heard a couple of seniors talking about her in the locker room and he'd forced himself to laugh because – _Katie_?

Maybe it had happened right now, when she sat down on his bed and pulled out a squashed banana and just said, "Where's the dustbin?" And it had been a long time, he knew, since she'd first been inside his room – God, a good ten years, perhaps – but he hadn't yet met a girl who'd actually been calm enough to treat the mess as _normal_.

Maybe that was all. That was it.

"Freddy, can we at least pretend we're studying?"

He rifled through his desk drawer. "You really wanna bother?"

"If your mom comes up here and sees us without our Biology books on our laps, she might not let you have any friends over for the next six months."

"Sucks, you know? Seventeen and still able to be grounded."

She smiled, and he liked that. "You'll probably be getting grounded when you're thirty-five."

"Ya think," he said, swinging his chair around and straddling it. "I'm gonna be so out of this shithole next year, my mom's probably never going to see me again."

When he usually said things like that, Summer or Tomika would shake their heads and say, "Don't say that," in hushed voices, as if his words were some kind of curse. Katie shrugged and said, "Knowing her, she'll hunt you down until you're right back here with her."

He supposed it was actually kinda wrong that his friends would talk about his mother like that, but it was the truth, and they all knew it. And he talked about Zack's parents the same way, and he figured it was only fair they'd do it to him in return. But it did – twinge, sometimes. "She'll try."

There was silence for a while, and then he said, "Where are you applying?" because it was a question he really didn't want to hear the answer to.

She shrugged. She did that a lot. "I don't know … East coast universities, I suppose. It'll make my parents happier."

"Where do you want to go?"

She smirked at him. "What is this, a college-counseling session? I've had quite enough of those, thanks."

"No, really, where do you want to go?"

"Oh, I don't know." She rummaged around on his bed, digging under a pile of t-shirts and coming up with a battered-looking textbook. "Biology, Freddy?"

Maybe it happened when she handed him his Biology book and his hand brushed hers and she looked at him and smiled, just slightly. But he could never be sure when it did happen, because he'd known her for _so long_.

"What're we doing?" he said, in the most bored voice he could manage.

She flipped some pages in her own, much neater book. "Chapter 11 – Mental Health."

He chortled. "This should be fun."

He decided the only thing he'd learnt in the next hour was that he was not anorexic, and that Katie scrunched up her nose on the word "however." Every time. "All right, enough," he said eventually. "Snack time."

She checked her watch. "Actually we ought to be getting to practice. Don't you think?"

"I'm hungry," he said. "So, no, I don't think."

She sighed, packed her books away. There was a depression in the piles of clothes on the bed where she'd sat. "We're playing Rock 'n' Rollover tonight. I think we should all make it to practice."

Even the band was becoming a duty now. His mother thought that he should go for a music scholarship, that he should at least work hard in the band if he refused to pull up his grades. He remembered the days when going to afternoon band practice had been an adventure, a fight against his mother and everything she'd ever tried to impose on him. And now … now she was always calling Dewey, wanting to know how he was doing, always coming home from work to make sure he went to practice and mostly waiting outside to pick him up, as if he wasn't seventeen and fully capable of driving himself. Or, you know, _walking_.

"I don't care," he said, and surprised himself with the ferocity of it.

She turned to him, quiet, serious as always. "No, I guess you don't. But it matters to the rest of us. We've spent a long time at this, and I don't want it to go to waste because you don't care, Freddy."

And it scared him how _nice_ she sounded, like she meant it, like she wasn't angry, like she felt bad for him but this was how it was.

If his mother had been different, he'd've thought Katie sounded like her.

"I care about the _band_," he said. "I just don't care about … this." He gestured around his room, at the mess, at the uniforms littered on the floor and the everyday clothes on the bed. At the empty cans of Coke and Mountain Dew, from Zack's last sleepover. He wasn't sure what he meant, so he couldn't be sure if she'd understood.

She smiled at him, and it might have been sad, he couldn't be sure. "You'll get out of this, Freddy. Honestly."

"How do you know that?" he said, and he'd never meant to say that, because it made it seem as if he hadn't been as certain about leaving as he liked to sound.

"Well, mostly because I can't imagine you here five years from now."

He thought about that, about his twenty-two-year-old self in this same room, littered with the same mess, the same memories. The same _restrictions_. "No. No, I can't see myself here either."

"Then you'll get out." She slung her bag over her shoulder, and he looked up at her. He thought she had pretty hair. "Come on, then. We've got a performance tonight, after all."

And he went with her. Not that he'd ever really considered not going.

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He remembered the first time he thought it was wrong. It was during band practice – isn't everything? – and he'd been sitting spinning his drumsticks, waiting for everyone to get into positions and get started, and she'd walked across in front of him and bent down to fiddle with the amps on the floor, and he'd found himself checking out her ass. And he'd wondered, over the next few months, if all drummers spent copious amounts of time staring at their bassist's backside. 

He kicked a pebble out of his path; it bounced down the sidewalk and fell into the drain at the side. "I don't understand why Dewey couldn't give us a ride home," he said.

"Oh, he was willing," said Katie. "But I wasn't going to sit in his van with him in that state."

"Drunk off his ass?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

He shrugged his shoulders. If it meant spending time alone with her, it was fine with him, except it didn't; they had Marta and Tomika and Leonard all trailing along beside them. And it was freezing.

Marta spoke up. "There was this guy, after the show, he slipped me his number. I haven't got a clue who he is, though."

"Was he cute?" asked Tomika.

"Kinda. Looked about our age, but he definitely wasn't Horace Green."

"C'mon, Marta, you know only _we're_ Horace Green," said Freddy. "Your guy's probably Carlton High or something. Respectable public school material."

"He's not _my_ guy. Just _a _guy."

"Blah blah," he answered. "So are you going to call him?"

"I don't even know his name!"

"That's never stopped me," he said with a leer, and was rewarded with three girls rolling their eyes in unison.

"How many numbers did you get this time, Freddy?" said Leonard, stepping into the conversation.

"Eh … " He wriggled his shoulders. "None, actually. I think I should give up drumming – no one can see me there."

"None?" said Marta, laughing. "You're losing it, Freddy Jones."

"I'm not _losing_ it, I'm just too hidden."

"Never used to be hidden before," smirked Tomika. "Ah, this is my stop. See you guys in school, then."

"Bye!" waved Marta and Leonard enthusiastically. Katie smiled, Freddy sulked.

"So … Freddy, how long's it been since your last date, anyway?" said Marta, smiling.

"So, Marta, how long's it been since you gave up on Marco?"

She shut up immediately. Blushed.

They walked in silence for the next few minutes, until Marta said bye and turned away into her apartment building. Leonard was next – his was a few streets off their road, but he told them to go straight on. "It's not like I'm Marta or anything – no one's going to be accosting me," he said, and Freddy felt bad about his crack about Marco.

So it was Freddy and Katie then, crunching along in the snow, snowcaps pulled down around their ears. Her nose was red, he could see it in the dim streetlight. He supposed his was, too.

"Don't you think it went well?" he asked, because she seemed too quiet.

"The show?" she said, turning to look at him.

"Yeah."

"It was great. Better than I expected. Maybe not our best, though."

"You don't seem that happy, then. If it was better than you expected."

She shrugged. "I don't know. I was thinking … I was thinking it might be one of our last, you know?"

He hadn't ever let himself think that. If they were all going to leave for college after this, he had never let himself think that it would be – _the end_. Of the band. Of them all.

"It's not like we'll stop playing, after high school," he said, and he tried to make it sound as if she was being stupid.

"Of course not," she said, rolling her eyes. "Just … I don't know. Whatever."

"No." He came round in front of her, stopped her from going any further. "I'm serious. I'm not going to give up drumming to go to college, Katie. Zack's not going to throw away his guitar. You aren't going to leave your bass behind. This isn't the end."

She smiled at him, the way she'd smiled at him in his room earlier that day. "I know that, Freddy."

"And we'll all come back," he said, except he wasn't so sure. "We'll still play together, if that's what you mean."

She shook her head. "We'll try, of course. But … things change, Freddy. People change. You've said it yourself – you'll be so out of this shithole next year. Why would you want to come back?"

He didn't know what he was saying. "I'd come back for you."

And she looked at him, and there was just the light from the streetlamp and snowflakes on her cap, on the tip of her nose, and she was really very close, and he swallowed and amended, "For all of you. For the band."

She smiled, again. "I'd come back for all of you as well."

He thought they'd made some kind of pact there, in the middle of a deserted street in the best neighbourhood of Long Island, with the snow floating down around them. But he wasn't sure, because she poked him in the ribs then and said she'd only come see him if he picked up his drumming, and they baited each other all the way to her house.

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	2. Comfortably Numb

**(In)Security.**

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Comfortably Numb_.**

"How many times have I told you, Mr. Jones, you are not to wear sweaters that do not conform to the school uniform?"

"But it's _cold_."

"Obviously it's warm enough for everyone else. I don't see them wearing anything extra under their blazers. And I do not see why we should make an exception for you."

"They used to let me wear something warmer back in Prep."

"I would have thought you're a big boy now. Now take it off, and sit down."

He plunked himself down next to Katie in the back row, and she said, "Well, if you'd stuck to off-white, she'd have probably let you wear it."

He looked down at the bright red sweater he was wearing and shrugged. "This is better. Warmer."

"Or it would have been, if you were allowed to wear it."

He made a face at her, and Mrs. Stanton turned around from to blackboard to say, "If I have to ask you to remove your sweater one more time, Mr. Jones, I will personally take you to the principal for disciplining."

He wanted to make some crack about women being so very eager to see him naked, but Mrs. Stanton was well over sixty, and he thought a joke like that would be more embarrassing for him than her. So he shrugged out of his blazer, took off his sweater and draped it in the most conspicuous way possible behind his chair, and pulled his blazer back on.

"Stupid witch." He ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to make it stick up more.

Katie smirked. "Where's your tie, Jones?"

He grasped uselessly at the collar of his shirt. "Oh shit."

"I think you should hide, before she sends you off to Frosty."

"Do you have any idea how ironic that is?"

"One more word from you two and Ms. Frost will be hearing about this," said Mrs. Stanton, turning around yet again. She peered closely at the two hands Freddy had clutched around his neck. "What is wrong now, Mr. Jones?"

"Nothing," he said, very truthfully.

She looked pointedly at his hands.

"My neck is cold," he said by way of explanation.

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow, and somewhere near the front of the class, Zack chuckled. She turned to glare at him, and then went back to the blackboard.

It had stopped snowing by recess, so Freddy wolfed his lunch down and went outside with Zack to throw snowballs at unsuspecting girls. Nobody had the guts – or the inclination, really – to get into a full-blown snowball fight with them, so they went back inside with Freddy railing at the world in general and Zack nodding along.

"Freddy, man, you've got to stop taking everything so personally," said Frankie, in English Lit.

"Personally? I'm not taking anything personally, I'm just saying that _no one_ stopped and threw anything back at us! We were annoying them! We were destroying their uniforms! They just _ran_!"

"They ran," said Michelle from the seat in front of them, "_because_ you were annoying them. Why would they stay?"

"To stick up for themselves! To show some backbone! To do something _different_."

"Shh, Watson's here," hissed Summer from the front, and they all shut up. Because Watson was strict.

He had detention after school – he couldn't quite remember for what, but he knew he had it – so he got out around five o'clock. Katie was sitting outside the school steps as he came out, and he looked at her in surprise. "What're you doing here?"

"Getting bored," she said, standing up.

He didn't think it was possible she'd sit here for two hours waiting for _him_. "Why were you here, then?"

"My sister has a swimming gala thing at the Prep School, so I walked her there. And then I figured you'd be around here, so I came here."

He wanted to ask her why she didn't go home instead, but he thought that just might make her actually leave. "Yeah," he said. "Detention."

"As always. What was it this time?"

"Dunno …"

She laughed. He started down the steps, and she followed him. "Do you want to go somewhere?" he asked.

"Where?" she said. "Because I have to be back to get Donna at seven."

"We could go to the skatepark," he said, "but it's past five already and we'll barely get an hour there."

"Plus you're in uniform," she said.

"Crap, yeah. So that's out. We can go to my house, then. Or yours."

"Will your mom be home?"

He grinned. "Nah. She knows we don't have band practice today, so she'll still be at work."

"Your house it is, then."

His house wasn't far; it was half the reason his mother let his grandparents pay for his school tuition – it saved her pick and drop duty, when he was younger. Small house, sandwiched between two others just as squashed as his, and you wouldn't be expecting a kid from here paying the fees for Horace Green. He wasn't ashamed, he didn't want the huge townhouse Zack lived in, or Leonard's with the swimming pool in the backyard, but he did wish his mother could have shown some pride and sent him to the local public school. Out of her own pocket.

He unlocked the front door, threw his bag in the corridor. "Coke? Ice cream? Any form of alcohol?"

She laughed. "You have access to alcohol now?"

"No, but I can ask you because I know you'll refuse."

"I want a beer," she said. "Don't come upstairs until you get me a beer."

"Coke it is," he said, heading for the fridge.

She was flipping through his CDs when he came upstairs, arms laden with cans of Coke and packets of chips. "It's a Pink Floyd kinda day," she said, looking up at him.

He thought about that. "Not so much. But you can put that on, if you like."

She did. Hey You started up, but she changed it to Comfortably Numb. He sat down next to her, elbows almost touching, and unloaded the goodies onto her lap. "Here's your beer," he said, popping open a can.

She grinned. "Thanks," she said, and her fingers slipped on the condensation on the can, slightly damp hands touching his. "Dunno what I'd do without my alcohol."

"_Gimme back my gimme back my gimme back my alcohol_ – " he chanted, grinning.

"Don't quote Nirvana while I'm listening to Pink Floyd," she admonished, and leaned back against the side of his bed.

The music wasn't loud; he felt like it took some sort of baseline presence in his mind, there but not really. It was as if there was silence in that room, silence in his mind, silence in hers. He wondered what she'd say if he put an arm around her shoulders, what she'd say if he told her he thought she was pretty.

He thought about the dark-haired guy who'd come over to talk to her after their performance last week – he wondered if he'd told her she was pretty.

He wondered if it mattered.

"Katie," he said, and he knew he was breaking the mood, "why don't you have a boyfriend?"

She turned to him with a 'huh?' look on her face. "What kind of a question is that?"

He knew he'd dug a hole for himself. He supposed he could at least jump in with dignity. _With a guitar in his hand and rock in his heart._ He remembered that speech. It still made sense to him. "I'm just wondering is all."

She looked at him as if he might be slightly unhinged, and then she said, "That's totally up to me, Freddy."

He knew that, he just wanted to know why she chose not to. Why she was always so _available_. Maybe if she was another guy's girlfriend he could substantiate, in his mind, what was so wrong with liking her, apart from the fact that she was his friend. And that they used to change in the same room after they went swimming when they were six.

"Why do you ask?" she said, and her face was turned towards him. He could feel her breath on his shoulder, his neck.

"I was just wondering," he repeated.

"I could ask you the same thing, you know," she said seriously.

"What? Why I don't have a boyfriend?"

She laughed. "Yeah. Makes sense, don't you think? If you're going to go so long without a girlfriend, why haven't you found a boyfriend yet?"

"Is this some indirect way of telling me you're gay?"

She rolled her eyes. "Wouldn't it be easier if I was," she mumbled.

"What?" he said.

"Nothing."

He let it go. He didn't want to hear about a guy, not from her.

Eventually she put her head on his shoulder. She did that, always, if they were watching a movie, if they'd had a particularly grueling jam session, or just if neither of them had anything to say. He would have thought he was special, with most girls, but he couldn't, not with her, because she would do it with anyone she happened to be sitting with.

He never _really_ responded. Sometimes he'd scoot down a little, so that her head wouldn't lie on the bone, or he'd lean back so that her hair didn't get in his nose. But he remembered thinking about what she'd say if he put an arm around her – so he did.

And she didn't say anything.

She shifted a little, folding into him, and her side was soft and her hair smelt clean. Washed. Girl-shampoo and girl-skin. Hers was different – every girl's was different – but it was still _girl-_smell, and he tightened his arm around her.

If she let him do this, maybe she'd let him kiss her.

"I like you, Freddy," she said, her eyes searching out his. And it was a weird thing to say, and his heart fell, only slightly, because it was so _casual_, the way she said it, it didn't seem to mean anything more than the fact that she liked him. And he _knew_ she liked him – as Freddy the boy she'd known since first grade, as Freddy the drummer, maybe just as _Freddy_. But … not that way. The way she was saying it now – she didn't like him that way.

"I like you too," he said, and he was being honest. And his voice sounded just like hers – normal. Real. It wasn't an admission of anything – new.

She nodded, head nestled in the crook of his shoulder – he felt it more than saw it. And he wondered what it all meant.

Because he still wanted to kiss her.

* * *

"So how are classes going, Katie?"

"Oh, they're fine. I hate World History, but everything else is fine." She smiled at his mom across the table, her social smile. It wasn't how she smiled at him.

"Freddy's list of hate is a lot longer, isn't it Freddy?" His mother looked at him over the bowl of lasagna.

"I think my list of like's as long as Katie's list of hate," he said truthfully. "Possibly shorter."

Katie grinned at him across the table, his mother smiled. He shoveled down his food. Her mother had called around six-thirty saying that she'd pick Donna up herself, and Katie could do what she liked. So she'd stayed, and they'd listened to music, and talked some, and she'd stayed within the circle of his arm for hours.

And then his mom had come home, and they were forced to go down and help her with dinner. It didn't stop him from missing the warmth of her side.

There was silence for a while, so his mom continued doing what she considered ice-breaking. "Done with SATs, Katie?"

"Almost. Taking my last one this month."

"I'm sure you're working harder than Freddy is," said his mom with a smile. He hated it when she treated him as stupider than everyone else. He knew he wasn't smart, not Summer-smart, but he didn't want his _mother_ to say it.

"I'm sure she is," he said, with good grace. Because it wasn't Katie's fault.

"Of course I am," said Katie with a grin, and he appreciated it.

He was told to walk her home afterwards, and he didn't mind being told even though he'd been ready to do it anyway. Her house was only a few minutes away, and if they cut through the park his house opened onto it was an even shorter walk.

There was snow on the swings, wet puddles at the base of the slides. Sometimes, in the summer, they would sit down on the tyres on their way home, sometimes to talk, sometimes to play around. But now everything was wet – it wasn't at all fun to sit down in a slushy loop of rubber.

He suggested it anyway.

"Hang around here?" she said, looking around. "Why not?"

"You don't have a curfew or anything, do you?" he asked, heading for the nearest swing.

"Not these days." Her parents were famous for their curfews – there were few times of the year Katie was free to stay out late.

"No problem, then." He used the end of his scarf to brush away some of the snow, and sat down in the tyre.

"Move up." She came around the back of the swing; he tilted his head back to look at her. "We'll share."

"Oh, okay," he said, and he pushed himself forward and she sat down behind him, her back against his. He could barely feel her weight through the thickness of their jackets.

"Swing," she commanded, and he grinned. Complied.

The night air was cold on his face; he could feel his cheeks stinging, his hands freezing where he held on to the chains. Her elbows were hooked through the chains, her hands tucked in her pockets. He couldn't sit like her – there wasn't enough space.

"One of us is going to fall," she commented, as he pushed them a little higher. He heard the bars of the swing creak.

He looked down thoughtfully. "There's only snow down there. It won't hurt that much."

"That much," she said, and suddenly her hands were over his, on the chains. Warm wool on cold skin.

"You have gloves?" he said enviously.

"I'm smarter than you, remember?"

He laughed. "It doesn't matter, I'm sexier."

"You wish."

"I do, actually."

She laughed; he felt it against his back. He swung them higher, and her hands tightened around his. He could feel the cold metal biting into the inside of his palm, the warmth from her hands seeping in from the back.

"Come on, Freddy," she said after a while. "I think I should be getting home now."

"You said you didn't have curfew," he said, but he slowed the swing anyway.

"I don't. Let's not push it until I _do_ have one, yeah?"

"Yeah…" He judged his distance from the ground and jumped off. She fell backwards on the swing with a little gasp, back hitting his side of the tyre.

He got to his feet, grabbed the tyre with both hands to stop it. Her face was just below his; she looked up at him and her eyes were bright. "You could have at least warned me!" she huffed.

Her breath sent puffs of condensation into his face. "You should have expected it," he said, and he wondered if he was close enough.

"I keep thinking you'll grow out of it," she said, but her voice was low. Distracted. He wondered if she was thinking what he was thinking. If she wanted …

She sat up, pulling her face away from him, and he closed his eyes in disappointment. He heard the swing creaking; he looked at her, and she was turning, legs pulled up against her chest, until she was facing him in the tyre and he was holding onto it as if his life depended on it.

And then she kissed him. Slowly, on the side of his mouth, as if she was going for his cheek but had caught his lips instead. He moved, turned – and then there were cold lips full against his, and the cold tyre under his hands, and her breath chuffing into his mouth. She tasted of ice, of melting snow – of warm girl if he could just get deeper.

He wanted to touch her, to put his hands on her shoulders and pull her closer, but if he let go of the tyre she would fall. So when she pulled her face away he couldn't bring her back, only wish she'd kiss him again.

He didn't know what the expression on her face was – relief, uncertainty, numbness. He remembered, suddenly, her hand on the remote of his CD player, switching the song to Comfortably Numb. He thought, only for a second, that he was being used.

He wanted to say something characteristic, something along the lines of, "Told you I was sexy," but his emotions were too close to the surface to joke with. Maybe later he'd say that to her. Not now. He couldn't, now. So he smiled at her, just slightly.

And she smiled back. Just as slightly.

And he figured it was okay.

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A/N: **I understand if the structure seems a little cut-up … I planned this as a succession of scenes, initially, slotting together for a slightly long-winded one-shot. Then it became so bloody long-winded that it'll easily be ten chapters. So much for self-assessment. grin 


	3. The Bends

**(In)Security.**

**A/N: **I had a lot of problems with the title for this one. I'm still not satisfied.

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The Bends.**_

Tammy Lee was flirting with him across the lunch counter. Usually he would respond in kind, but right now he was trying to peer over her shoulder to see what table Katie was sitting at and if the seat next to her was free. Michelle was there – gah, he hated sitting with people blonder than he was – but she was the only one with Katie, so maybe it would be worth it to sit there.

"See ya, Tammy," he muttered, almost overturning the packet of orange juice in his tray as he turned to leave.

He was almost at Katie's table when he heard Marta's voice in his head … _How long's it been since your last date anyway, Freddy?_ Of course it had been long – how did you get a date if you brushed off every other girl that talked to you?

"Hi," said Katie with a smile when he sat down next to her. She smiled so normally – there was nothing secret in it, nothing that said that she was the same girl who'd kissed him on the swings last Thursday.

"Hey," he said, sticking a straw in his packet of juice. "Where's Zack?"

Michelle gave him an appraising look. "Where have you been all weekend, Freddy?"

Daydreaming, he thought, but he didn't say it. "Home. Sleeping. Watching TV. What else do I ever do?"

"Have you even bothered to call Zack?"

He raised his eyebrows. "You say that like I slept with him or something."

Michelle rolled her eyes. "He asked Summer out. On Saturday. And I haven't seen them separated all morning."

He stared at her in shock. "What?"

"He asked her out."

"The idiot! She's gonna fucking marry him!"

"She's not _marrying_ him, Freddy – she just said she wouldn't mind going out with him. For a while. Those were her exact words."

"And you know that how?"

"Because she told me."

He could just imagine Summer relating Zack's stuttering admission of really-not-undying love, red lips pursed up, straight hair flipped obnoxiously over her shoulder. "He's so screwed," he said in horror. "She's going to _ruin_ him."

"I doubt anyone can ruin Zack," Katie put in. Her first contribution to the conversation. "You failed, didn't you?"

"I didn't fail – I was just starting to succeed! And now he'll go back to parting his hair and gelling it down – and he'll stop _swearing_, oh God – not _Summer_, man – "

"I thought you were their friend," said Michelle, sounding almost as obnoxious as Summer sometimes could. "I thought you'd be happy for them."

"I _am_ happy for them – just – he's so screwed …"

"And I thought you were the driving force behind Zack's admission," said Katie.

He felt insulted. "I should've been. He's such an idiot, man. There are a ton of other girls out there – but he had to fall for _Summer_! And not only that, but she had to be the first girl he worked up the guts to ask out! Gah!"

Michelle's eyes lit up. "Ooh, so who else has he _not_ had the guts to ask out?"

He smirked. "Like I'm gonna spill past crushes. I only do present, thanks."

Zack had been in all his morning classes, but he usually sat near the middle of the class, so Freddy hadn't found it weird that he was sitting right behind Summer. And they'd talked some, between classes, and now that he thought of it Zack had seemed slightly spaced out – but Freddy hadn't minded, because he'd been trying to catch a glimpse of Katie in the corridors and he didn't want to get into an in-depth conversation with Zack.

He knew Zack had the hots for Summer – he'd known that for months. For all his quietness, Zack was disgustingly open about such things. Or disgustingly easy to pump for information – whichever way you wanted to put it. And he knew about all the times Zack had come close to actually saying something remotely flirtatious to her.

And he knew that Zack knew he liked Katie, even though neither of them had ever said anything.

He supposed it was fair enough; there hadn't been school on Friday, so he hadn't met any of them, and he hadn't bothered to call anyone all weekend – except for Katie, who had been asleep one time and out somewhere the other, and he hadn't tried more than twice because it made him seem too desperate. She'd called him once, too, on Sunday – but his mom had sent him to buy random groceries and he'd forgotten his cell so he'd missed her call.

So he hadn't told Zack about his – development – and Zack hadn't told him either, so it was _fair_… but he was still annoyed.

More about the fact that it was Summer than the fact that Zack hadn't told him he'd made his move. Because – ew.

Katie met him on the front steps after school. One of his cousins had told him, once, that a girl always looked different after you kissed her, but he'd never thought that true until now. Maybe because he'd never fantasized about a girl as long as he'd fantasized about her.

"I called," she said. To the point, as usual.

"So did I," he said. He was standing a good three feet away from her – he wondered if it was supposed to be awkward. It'd been fine at lunch, but maybe that was only because Michelle had been there.

"I know."

It wasn't awkward behind the tree in the car park. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her lips were warm against his, warmer than they had been that day on the swings, in the snow. Coke and bubble gum and something sharper in his mouth. She let him in this time, properly, teeth and tongue and all, and her hands were slipping inside his collar, trapped between layers of fabric.

He pushed her back against the tree, and he wondered for a second if the bark hurt her head but he didn't care that much, because it let him get closer, let him push against her mouth without her being able to move away at all. Not that it seemed as if she wanted to move away. Her hands delved deeper; he could feel her bunching up his pullover, using it to lever herself even closer.

She broke away only to say, "No detention today, Freddy?"

"No detention," he said, and he was surprised he had breath to say it.

Her lips were red, slightly swollen. He tried to chase them down again, but she didn't let him. She said, "Well, maybe we should keep it that way. Because right behind you is Frosty's car."

He groaned, forehead resting against hers. He understood what she was trying to say; if Frost caught them making out in the parking lot, she was going to give them the kind of detention they'd still be doing three years into college. "Come on then," he said, tugging on her hand, her shirt. "We'll go to my house."

She dug her heels into the ground. "Kinda presumptuous, isn't that? I probably have other horribly important things to do."

"More important than snoggin' me senseless?"

She grinned. "If you put it that way …" she said. "But – no, I have to get home, Freddy. There's band practice afterwards and my mom and dad already think I'm never home these days."

"So we'll go to your house," he said stubbornly.

She smiled. "Sure. My entire family will be there, but sure."

"Mondays suck."

She eyed him up and down. "Are you saying that sucked?"

He backpedaled immediately. "You think I'm suicidal?"

"Sometimes I have my doubts," she said.

* * *

"You're late," he told Zack, loftily.

"I'm doing you a favour by picking you up, man. So shut up and get in."

He did. "What's got your panties in a bunch?"

"The fact that I've had to go half an hour out of my way to pick you up from the middle of nowhere, maybe?"

"Watch the snark, dude. You're gonna turn into your dad."

Zack navigated the traffic light, lips pursed. "I can throw you out right here, Freddy."

"Eh. I know. That's why I didn't say you were gonna turn into _my_ dad."

Zack grinned, reluctantly. They all knew Freddy's dad had been an abusive bastard. Verbally and otherwise. The SUV turned right sharply; Freddy's arm banged against the passenger window.

"I'm kinda – wound up," said Zack eventually.

"Uh-huh," he answered. This was Zack's classic heartfelt-admission opening.

"Uh-huh," repeated Zack, taking another turn a little too sharply. Freddy wondered if it was worth getting to band practice with a broken arm. "I … I did something stupid on the weekend."

"You lost Never Mind the Bollocks."

"Something like that, yeah." Zack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, checked the time on the car dashboard. He closed his eyes, opened them, and said, "I asked Summer out."

He wondered, for a split second, whether he should pretend to be shocked and let Zack feel as if he was the first one to tell him. But he figured he'd find out that Freddy already knew sooner or later, so he said, "Yeah, I know."

"You _know_?"

He didn't see why Zack had any right to sound betrayed. So he repeated, "Yeah, I know. Michelle told me. Today, at lunch." He paused, and added, "Because you weren't there."

"Michelle knows?"

"Dude, _everyone_ in their senior year knows."

Zack's voice cracked slightly. "Everyone? They're all – interested?"

He grinned. "Nah. But they still know."

"Summer told everybody?" Zack's voice was a whisper; this was clearly rhetorical.

But when did Freddy ever care about that? "Not really. She told half of everybody – the girls – and they told everyone else."

Zack was silent. Freddy felt bad.

"So what happened?" he said, finally. "Why'd you do it?"

"I – I dunno. I wanted to get a new amp for my guitar, and I didn't think my parents would pay for it, so I thought I'd ask her if we could manage something out of the band's funds, and so she said we could go to Guitar World and see if we could find something within our budget …"

"And you never got to Guitar World?"

Zack laughed. "No, we did. And we didn't buy anything. And then I said I could buy her something to eat, because we'd come out there for nothing, and she said …" He looked fixedly at the road. "She said, 'You mean – like a date?' and I said, 'If you want,' and she said really happily, 'Okay!'"

"I bet she looked at you like you were her new class project."

"Something like that."

He felt like something more encouraging was needed. "Well, good on you, man. Did you make out with her yet?"

Zack went red. That meant a yes, or a very close shave that translated to 'maybe'.

"Right," said Freddy. "I'm guessing that was at lunch?"

Zack went redder than before. It didn't look good with his dark hair; he looked like one of those demented tomatoes that came in ketchup advertisements.

"Right," said Freddy, again.

There was silence, for a while. Freddy stared out the fogged-up window, rubbing at the glass with his sleeve. Zack held on to the steering wheel in the perfect 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock position – as if someone was going to pull him over and hand him a ticket any time.

Eventually he said, "I know you don't like her. But … it's been good, so far, you know?"

He'd never thought Zack cared if Freddy didn't think Summer was ideal girlfriend material. "I _do_ like her, Zack," he said, in his best you-stupid-dog voice. "She's my friend and all. Kind of. I just think she'd make a crap girlfriend."

"Weren't you the one who said it doesn't matter what a girl is like so long as she kisses well?" said Zack with an uncharacteristic smirk.

Freddy grinned. "In that case, I'll be your best man."

Zack's face became serious again. "I like her for more than that, you know."

Freddy grimaced. "Don't spoil it, man. Let me have my illusions."

Zack grinned, but he didn't say anything else.

They were about five minutes from Dewey's place – and only five minutes late for practice – when he decided to share his end of the weekend. He wondered if Katie would feel the way Zack did when he found out that Summer had told other people about them, but then he figured that Zack wasn't the bunch of chattering girls Summer had spilled the beans to, so it didn't really matter.

He couldn't find a way of beating around the bush, so he said, "Katie kissed me."

Zack spluttered; the car swerved. "_She_ kissed _you_?"

"Yeah."

"And when were you planning on telling me this?"

"Just now." He stopped, then said, "At least you're hearing it from me."

"That's unfair, man."

He knew that. "Yeah." He shrugged. "Sorry."

"So?"

"So what? I don't know. That was Thursday. I saw her after school today, for a while. But she had to go home."

"Can I tell anyone?"

"Your gossipy side is getting out of hand, Zack."

"I suppose that's a no."

"That is a no."

Zack parked the car and got off to fish his guitar out from the back. "You don't have anything with you, do you? No? Okay then." He slammed the back door. "So, what comes next, Freddy?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. She – she doesn't seem like she wants to go out, you know?"

Zack snorted. "She's just using you for sex, huh?"

"Yeah," he drawled. "Minus the sex part."

"So … you really like her, then?" asked Zack, as they climbed Dewey's stairs.

He thought about that. "I – I guess I do, yeah," he said, and it felt weird, because he'd never said that to anyone before.


	4. Love Buzz

**(In)Security.**

**A/N: **I've got quite a bit written, but I don't want to post until I reach a point of no return. And there's little inspiration to be found in this fandom, after the initial burst. Ah well.

**_

* * *

__  
Love Buzz._**

He got a ride in her car after practice. Her dad was there to pick her up, and it was freezing cold outside again, so she offered to drop him home and he accepted immediately. She sat up front with her dad, arguing over radio channels, and he sat in the middle at the back, legs spread open and seatbelt hanging ignored.

"That's Shocking Blue, Dad," she was saying. "I wanna listen to them!"

"I don't care if it's the Grateful Dead, Katie, I'm really not in the mood – "

"You sure it was Shocking Blue?" asked Freddy.

"It _was_," she grumbled, "until _he_ changed the channel."

Freddy grinned. When he was younger, he never even got this far in the argument with his mother. Now – well, he couldn't remember the last time they'd sat in the car together like this. "We were on College Radio 87 day before yesterday – did you hear it?"

She turned around in her seat to face him; her dad made a disapproving sound. "We were? You should've told me! What did it say? What did we sound like?"

"So not like us. I heard the drums and I thought, dude, I can drum better than that!"

She grinned. "That's 'cause you probably can. Wasn't anything said about us?"

"I didn't really catch it – the guy was just saying something to the effect of 'local group finally making a comeback with new single' and then it was the song, and it was so crap, the transmission sucked and the bassline was – " He bit back the 'fucked' for Mr. Brown's sake, " – barely audible, the whole thing was just flying off into the sky, man – "

She looked like he'd punched her in the gut. "Was it really? I _told_ Dewey it needed to be louder, the song wasn't grounded enough – but I heard the final mix, it seemed okay – "

"Actually I think it was the transmission," he said, and he didn't say it just to make her feel better. "I could only actually hear Zack's solo, the rest was just drowned out."

She nodded. "Why didn't you call me when it came on?"

"Honestly? I didn't think of that until the song was over."

"Glad to know I'm the first thing on your mind these days," she muttered, and he didn't say what he wanted to because her dad was _right there_, and she was being really stupid if she thought parents didn't hear that sort of thing.

Maybe her dad wouldn't mind, but in his experience it was perfectly okay to let your mom know you had a girlfriend – as long as you never showed any kind of affection in front of her. Or the expectation of any.

So he settled for, "Plus I knew you'd all already heard it that time last week."

"That was different – we were _in_ the radio station then. It's totally different hearing it in your car!"

"It was Zack's car," he said, but in a low voice.

* * *

The girls' bathroom was always empty during the time they had gym; he didn't know why, but that was how it was. He'd been here before during gym class – once with Penny Hopkins, twice with Rhonda Watts, even once with Marta, three years ago – but this was the first time he'd ever been here with Katie.

Any guy walking out of the girls' bathroom after gym probably seemed to everyone else like the boy in deodorant ads who'd been accosted by a group of scantily-clad girls – the boy who emerged with crooked glasses and pink lipstick marks all over his face. Freddy understood that; he felt like that. Dazed. Confused. Katie was all over his mouth and he was thinking Led Zeppelin.

This time it was his head hitting a hard surface, his hair making odd static-y noises against the white tile. Her lips felt different today; he supposed it was lip gloss, he wasn't sure. It was all over his lips too – it felt strange, sticky. And when she kissed his neck he could still taste it – her – on his lips and he thought maybe his knees would give way.

So many layers of clothing – he'd never hated school uniform the way he did now. Blazer and pullover and shirt and tank top and his hands were scrabbling uselessly at her back but he wasn't finding any skin, and he pulled extra hard and she gasped against his neck, and it felt good and he wanted her to do it again –

"F-Freddy?" she said, and her voice was all wonky.

"Mm, yeah?" he said, and he had reached her shirt now, there could only be one layer left –

"I think gym is almost over."

"No," he said with certainty. Her breath was cooling the wet spot on his neck – it made him shiver. "We – we just got here – "

She laughed, shakily. "Not quite."

He tore one of his hands away from her back to check his watch. "Fuck," he said.

She looked at him, tousled hair and smudged lip gloss. The side of her cheek was shining. "You should go?" she said, and the worst part was that it was a question.

"I should," he agreed, but he tightened his hold on her and hoped she wouldn't leave.

Except she did. She stepped back, and he let go, and she peered out to see if there was anyone in the corridor, and he left a good five minutes before she did, so that even if anyone saw it wouldn't seem that suspicious.

* * *

Up until around seventh grade, Freddy's best – more like only – friend had been Frankie. He'd never been the kind of friend Zack was, but they hung out together and sat together and ate lunch together and Freddy just kinda assumed that all this made Frankie his best friend. And maybe it did.

He supposed it had been because Frankie was just big enough to be safe from Freddy's bursts of aggressiveness, and because he had bursts of aggressiveness himself. And together they weren't bullies, not quite, but if it had been a bigger school, and there had been a few more kids like Freddy or Frankie, they might have been.

And it didn't change just after Dewey and the band, although he was sure that's where it started. That band made them a group of friends the way nothing had so far; it made Lawrence have drumstick sword-fights with Freddy Jones, it made Frankie sit on the school steps with Michelle and Eleni, it made Summer Hathaway shut up and listen to Zack Mooneyham. It broke down all the barriers of cool and uncool that had just started to cement themselves.

If you were to ask him back in fifth grade to predict who would be fast friends in their senior year of high school, he wouldn't even have dreamed that almost-bully Frankie would be friends with giggly-girls Michelle and Eleni, or that obnoxious Freddy Jones would spend most of his time with introvert Zack Mooneyham. Or silent Katie Brown.

They stopped sitting together at the back in the summer after seventh grade, Freddy and Frankie, and it wasn't some big huge breakdown in their friendship. They didn't feel like sitting together, so they didn't. Frankie moved up a seat, and Freddy stayed there, behind Zack as always, except it seemed to mean something now because he saw Zack after school all the time at band practice. So he talked to Zack, and it was sort of easier to hang out with him, what with the band and all, and … then they were friends.

Thinking through his friendship history made him feel very deep and introspective, which he supposed Zack and Katie felt all the time, so he leaned across and blew a spit bubble in Marta's ear.

"Ewww, _Freddy_!" she shrieked, and almost fell off her seat.

He felt better – a little more like his usual self – when Zack looked at him and said, "I thought you'd have grown out of your ADD by now. Because, honestly, the food's coming. You just have to wait a little."

He heard his mother's voice in his mind.

"Oh, that's just low, man," he said. "As if you haven't been trying to lessen _your_ boredom by sticking your hand up Summer's skirt."

Maybe that was a little much, he decided, as Zack jerked uncontrollably and Summer's face went redder than her red red lipstick. Summer might never wear a skirt again.

He looked innocently at the tabletop until their food arrived, and continued to look innocent as he shoved fistfuls of fries in his mouth. Cracks about his ADD days didn't usually bother him, but this one had been a little too uncalled-for, he thought. His response had been uncalled-for as well, but his mom had been ragging him all afternoon about his grades and she'd said almost exactly what Zack had said, only she hadn't meant it the way Zack had meant it, and … well, it wasn't Zack's fault that Freddy had embarrassed him.

It was the price of friendship, he decided.

They had a gig the next day, and this was their usual pre-show dinner. Saturday nights were always a good night to play; it meant you were doing well, you were in demand, _and_ many people would pay to see you. Which meant Friday night was for celebrating that particular fact.

Katie, Dewey, and Gordon hadn't been able to make it yet – Katie had a family wedding to attend, Dewey was out with Miss Mullins, and Gordon had a date. They'd all been insulted by Gordon's excuse, even though it was exactly the same as Dewey's – they'd given Gordon the 'the band isn't your priority anymore, is it?' speech until his ears went as red as they could, and they'd smiled at Dewey and asked him how his 'courtship' was going.

Freddy had almost not wanted to come because he knew Katie wasn't coming, but then he decided he wasn't one of those asswipes who didn't have a life outside of their girlfriend's existence, and plus these guys were his _friends_. So he went. And pretty much destroyed any understanding he'd reached with Zack concerning Summer.

Maybe not, though; Zack did let him finish his milkshake.

Gesture of friendship, or a glass full of spitballs? Whatever. He'd give Zack the benefit of the nice boy upbringing.

… and besides, Katie probably wasn't his girlfriend. He wasn't sure.

The mood had picked up a little by the time they'd downed their burgers and fries; Michelle and Eleni, who only ever came along for dinners and groupie-duty, never band practice, started relating every scandal they'd ever heard, and Frankie sat between them like a baby whale – silent and slightly shiny-looking. Zack wanted to know who had the new Halo – apart from Gordon, obviously – and Freddy started writing down all the cheats he knew on a napkin for Leonard, who only had the first one.

"Dewey!" said Marta with a loud squeal, suddenly, launching herself out of their booth.

The girls all seemed happy to see him; the boys looked at him in horror. "You're back _this early_?" said Freddy.

Dewey grimaced. "Ros had some family emergency."

"Dewey, man, girls _always_ pull that one," said Zack, and got a light smack from Summer.

"I actually _did_ have to go that time – my uncle was really sick – "

"You woulda thought they'd grow out of it," mumbled Dewey, and slid into the booth with them. Freddy, already jammed up against the wall, felt the breath being squeezed out of his lungs.

"Well, Miss Mullins still thinks she's underage," said Summer, and they all looked at her in silence before anyone laughed, because Summer never made jokes like that.

"Underage girls are more willing than she is!" said Dewey, loudly. And then, "_Not_ that I would know, of course."

"Dude, we're all seventeen. Feel free to share lewd sex details any time."

"Don't be sick, Freddy." That was Marta, predictably.

He leered at her and went back to his napkin.

He was the last one out because he'd been the first one in, and he heard a group of guys commenting on them on his way out. He stopped to listen, pretending to tie his shoelace, because he'd always been one to pick a fight.

"Private school brats," said one.

"Hear they're in a band."

"Oh yeah – School of Rock, isn't it? Don't quite suck."

"Rich daddies – prob'ly bought off the label they're on – "

"Nah, really, they're not that bad – drums could use some work though."

Oh, ouch.

"Saw 'em playing Rock 'N' Rollover a few weeks back – their bassist is hot, man."

Maybe this particular fight was a little beyond him. After all, the guy was entitled to his opinion – if he thought Katie was hot, he thought Katie was hot – it wasn't like he was _wrong_ – _Freddy_ thought Katie was hot, didn't he, and he knew he wasn't the only one but he'd never actually heard any guy say that since they'd kissed that first time –

His hands slammed down on their table. "Drums can use some work?" he snarled.

* * *


	5. Soup Is Good Food

**(In)Security. **

_

* * *

_

_**Soup Is Good Food.**_

"_At least we get a dignified cremation_!" came Jello Biafra's voice from the depths of Dewey's apartment. Terribly ironic, Freddy thought, in light of the scolding Dewey was giving him.

" – and what kind of band cannot accept constructive criticism? And who gives a shit what a group of high school kids thinks _anyway_?"

"We _are_ a group of high school kids," he put in, but Dewey didn't seem to hear him.

" – and to actually ask them to have a go at you – I mean, look at the odds, you idiot, that was six against one and if Zack hadn't come back for you – "

"Yeah yeah, I would've been in the hospital – I _know_ – "

"I don't _care_ if they put you in the hospital – it might have taught you a lesson!" Dewey was getting slightly apoplectic now, a close resemblance to the faces he made in the throes of a guitar solo. "What I care about is the band's rep – we're finally getting our songs good radio play and you want to go make us out to be spoilt rich kids who can't take a bit of flak?"

He opened his mouth to tell Dewey that he wasn't _that_ much of an idiot, and definitely not a spoilt rich kid – and swallowed it all. Because that meant telling them about Katie. While Katie wasn't here.

"_How does it feel to be shit out our ass?"_

"Can we take it off repeat, _please_?" he snarled.

"Leave it on, Leonard!" roared Dewey, as Leonard moved towards the stereo. "Are you even listening to me, Freddy Jones? I don't want you having one of your phases again just when we're on the verge of breaking the local circuit – "

Oh, fuck. "I blew up, okay? Shit happens – I'm sorry – whatever – get _over_ it!"

"I am not going to get over it until you tell me it's not gonna happen again!"

"You want me to say that? Is that it? Fine!" He put on his best fifth-grade-Summer impersonation. "It's not going to happen again, Dewey!"

"That's exactly what I mean!" yelled Dewey. "Stop acting _ten_ and listen to me – "

He _wasn't_ acting ten. He was taking this shit just because of some ambiguous sort of obligation to Katie that he wasn't sure he understood – Dewey was going to think he was an idiot just out for the posing, again, like he had all those years ago in that yellow van, and it didn't matter that he'd held it in for so many worse comments over the past couple of years, because he'd blown up this time –

"I need a smoke," he said, and got up and left.

He could hear the music even out in the hallway. _"You'll just have to kill yourself somewhere else_."

Hadn't had a cigarette for a good six months, and he didn't have any on him now either, but he had a lighter, so he stood in the corridor attempting to burn down the wall until Zack came outside.

"You here to talk the retarded drummer out of his suicidal – or bandicidal – urges?"

"Not really," said Zack. "And if you needed a cigarette you just had to ask."

"Because you've _always_ got a pack," sneered Freddy. Zack hadn't touched a cigarette in his life.

"No, but Dewey does," Zack said innocently, and leaned back against the wall next to him.

Freddy snorted, and continued clicking away with the lighter.

"So what'd they actually say?" said Zack eventually.

"The guys at the table?"

"No, Marta and Tomika just now."

"Nothing really," he said, and it was true. "Said drums could use some work."

Zack waited.

"Said our bassist was hot." He couldn't say Katie. Couldn't.

He hadn't known Zack was so tensed up until he let out a loud breath and slouched against the wall. "Well, that's all okay then. I thought – "

"You thought I was trying to get my rocks off somehow, huh?"

"Freddy," said Zack quietly, and he shut up. Zack continued, "No … I just thought you were being you – even if it was a twelve-year-old you – and we really couldn't have that just now."

"I'm not that much of an asshole," he muttered. He thought his cheeks might be red. They couldn't _actually_ think that of him. Not that he had given them reason to think otherwise.

"I thought you weren't," said Zack honestly. "But that's all you would tell Dewey – what were we supposed to think?"

"Er – 'Freddy's not _that_ much of an asshole'?"

Zack grinned. "Yeah, well. You wanna go make your apologies to Dewey now, or are you gonna go home?"

He raised an eyebrow at him. "You think I'm gonna _apologise_ to him? You're fucking kidding me."

"Well, if you haven't spilt the beans so far, you might as well tie a bow on your bean-bag with an apology."

"That's one crap metaphor, Mooneyham."

"I'm not even sure if it's a metaphor."

There was silence for a minute. "Fine then," said Freddy.

He opened the door, stepped inside with his eyes shut – _"How does it feel to be shit out our ass?"_ – and recited the speech he used every time something like this happened: "I'm sorry, Dewey, I was being stupid and betraying everything we believe in. But you were sounding like my mom, so I guess we're even."

"Leaving, then?" said Zack as he stepped back out.

He grinned at him. "Yeah. While the going's good and Dewey's still speechless."

Zack peered inside. "I think he's in awe that you never manage to vary that apology. In content _or_ tone."

"Pretty impressive, huh? Only wish I could learn Chem that easy." He looked at Zack, Zack looked at him. He wondered if he understood that Freddy felt very very – weird. As if he'd done something he'd never expected of himself. Proven something. Except no one but Zack would ever know.

"See you tomorrow," said Zack, with one of his introspective smiles.

Yeah, Zack got it. More than Freddy got, anyway.

"See ya," he said, heading down the stairs.

* * *

Almost midnight and there was barely any snow on the pavement but it was still freezing cold. His house was a good forty-minute walk from Dewey and Ned's apartment, and most late nights he would get a ride home with someone – Zack or Katie, as a rule. But not today …

The street was eerily quiet, the only noise the faint hum of electricity in the streetlamps, which was why he practically jumped when his phone rang. He didn't check the number; he just flipped it open and answered it.

It was Katie.

"Back from the wedding thing?" he said.

Her voice was loud in the quiet, even over the phone. "Mm, yeah. Got back a while ago. I thought I'd come over to Dewey's, but there's no car."

He snorted, slightly, breath puffing as mist. "Hey, us human kids, we walk."

"You're putting _us_ in the same category?"

"Dinner sucked without you."

She was silent for a second. He wondered if that was kinda too much to say. They never really _said_ anything to each other – they taunted, and they joked, and they made out, but they never said … anything like that. "Bet it did," she said. "You probably spent most of it pulling Marta's hair."

"Spit bubbles," he said in a bored tone. "Hair-pulling is so yesterday."

"You sound like such a girl, Freddy Jones."

"That's 'cause you do the manliness for me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she said, but she didn't wait for him to answer. "You wanna come over?"

Images flashed before his eyes – Katie on the swings, skin blue with cold, breath forming clouds around his face, Katie under the tree, glazed eyes and mussed hair. Katie in the girls' bathroom, warm and soft and _so girl_ all around him. He thought he might have staggered, he wasn't sure. "Your parents home?"

She sounded huffy. "Yeah. Obviously."

He hated to be the one to point out things like this – it was so bad for his image – but, "It's almost midnight, Katie."

"I know," she said. There was silence. "We can be quiet."

"You don't own a Dead Kennedys CD, do you?"

"What?" she said, but he'd already shut the phone. He had to run.

Her fire escape was down – it always was. He'd climbed it numerous times before, at all times of the day, so it was familiar enough, even with the damp steel slipping under his fingers as he hoisted himself up. Stupid apartment buildings, he thought, but he took that back – because it was harder to climb up windows in houses. He knew; he tried Zack's incessantly.

She was waiting for him; she opened her window immediately, and he tumbled through, landing ungracefully on his back in a wet pile of snow.

"Nice entrance," she smirked.

"Because you look so great yourself," he said.

She looked down at her dress, the kind of floral pattern old women with millions of cats wore. "It was my uncle's wedding, what did you expect? I don't really bother to see what my mom's got picked out for me."

It was so random, he thought, that he would be lying on his back in the middle of her room – in the middle of the night, no less – talking about dress patterns.

"I think I should do something suitably manly and kiss you," he said.

She grinned. "Go ahead."

He wrapped one gloved hand around her arm and pulled her down to him; she squeaked, slightly, at the cold wool against her bare skin. It made him grin – "See, I have gloves today," he whispered.

"I'm proud," she said, and she was whispering too.

She wasn't like this anywhere else, he knew, when her lips settled over his and her body nestled against his side. She didn't ever let anyone touch her like this, not with words and not with skin, and he felt strangely honoured to be allowed to run his hands up her arms, down her back, to pull her tight against him so that he wouldn't have to _imagine_ like he always did.

"Lose the jacket," she muttered, and he struggled to comply.

He got his arms stuck in the sleeves because he was in such a hurry, and she sat up with him, laughing against his mouth. For two seconds he was helpless, arms caught behind his back and she was half in his lap, hands on his face, in his hair – he would think that she was kissing him except kissing was too mild a word for this –

He made an unintelligible sound of celebration when the jacket finally fell away, and then he could put his arms around her and she was properly in his lap, legs around his waist, and everything was just _there_ and he wondered, vaguely, if she would let him –

"I missed you," she mumbled, and he swallowed the words more than heard them.

"You saw me in the morning."

She smiled against his mouth. He knew what she meant. He shivered.

"You've still got your gloves." Her voice was a whisper.

He made a frustrated sound. "It takes too long to take them off."

She grinned, hands at the base of his neck. "I get that."

He wanted to ask her if she got it, really, if she understood what he was feeling and thinking, if she understood that he'd been this far and further with a girl before but he'd never – never _felt_ it like this, like he wanted to talk to her in the middle of it and tell her –

"I got into a fight today," he said against the side of her neck. She smelt different here; nothing artificial, just girl-smell, Katie-smell.

"Uh-huh?" she said, and she wasn't listening. That was fine, he wasn't sure what he was saying.

"We were at the Red Diner." It was warm here, where her pulse beat in her throat. If he put his nose there he could feel the rhythm of her heartbeat. Drumbeats. _Thud thudda thud thudda thud thudda thud_. Faster than normal. So was his.

"Group of guys – " Her mouth was near his ear; he was twitching down below, he could feel it. He wondered if she could. "Said drumming sucked. Private school – " His mind blanked, he groped for words. " – brats. Thought you were hot."

"Hm?" she said, and she still seemed distracted. If he opened his eyes, all he could see was skin, and the ugly flower pattern on the edges of his vision.

"So I told them – to keep their – " His words were lost, he could only remember the end, " – to themselves."

She leaned back; he groaned, the light in the room hurt his eyes. "What?"

It was different when she looked at him like that, eyes all deep and brown, different with the walls of her room staring down at them. Suddenly, it didn't feel like the world ended where she stopped. There were other things, in the room, in her, in him – "They thought you were hot," he said, and he looked at a point somewhere above her shoulder. He didn't know what he was ashamed of. "Dewey gave me hell."

He thought, for a split second, that she was going to give him hell too, and maybe she would have if she hadn't been sprawled in his lap with her dress hiked up around her waist. But they were too close, and there was only them, after all, no versions of themselves that they had to be faithful to, for now, so she said, "Oh, Freddy – " and she sighed, and she sounded sad, and he leaned forward and kissed her because he was sorry for making her feel sad.

She leaned back when he stopped, looked at the clock on her desk.

"Is my time up?" he asked.

She smiled at him. "Yeah."

It seemed to him as if there was a deeper meaning to that than he meant, so he said, "So I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course," she said. "We've got a show, haven't we?"

"No, I mean, apart from that."

He would never understand why she would need to think about that, but he supposed she always would. And maybe it didn't matter, because she was here, wasn't she, legs around his waist, the neck of her dress half hanging off her shoulder?

"Okay," she said, finally. And she smiled, as if to negate the time she'd spent thinking about it, and she moved forward to kiss him and he was only a boy after all … that always worked.

He couldn't hide the disappointment on his face when she climbed off him, and it helped only slightly to see the same lost expression on hers. He levered himself back into his discarded jacket – it seemed cold and empty next to the warmth of her skin, and because he couldn't stop himself, he leaned down and kissed her again before he slipped out her window.

* * *

_A/N_: I think this fandom is something of a cop-out. Unless you're writing about the band when they're all ten years old, you don't have to be faithful to anything - no fixed characterisation, a few basic physical descriptions (and nothing that can't be fixed with hair-dye) ... It's like a fandom of AUs. And I'm no exception. It's why I don't update as often - I'm torn between taking the whole story down and putting out every chapter I have. Ah well. 


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